Miza of Level 1313
by padawanlence
Summary: When young, four-year-old Miza found out that she's Force-sensitive, her life changed. Discover the story of a girl on her quest to becoming a Jedi.
1. Visions

Once the magnetic train entered Monorel, the man sat up and headed for the door. He heard the robotic announcer mention something about what stop it was, but ignored the droid for the most part. Because he hadn't waited for the train to come to a complete stop before getting up, the inertia from the brakes made him wobble a little when it did.

The automatic sensors on the door hadn't turned on yet by the time he reached them. So, he waited for a few seconds and then waved his hand in front of them to see if they were working. Detecting the motion, the sensors opened the doors and he stepped out into the wet air.

The air in the under levels of the city-covered planet, Coruscant, was muggy; but not enough that it could bug him. So, he took a large gulp of air and headed home for the day.

A few minutes later, he entered a small building. Setting his bag down next to the front door, he walked into the kitchen. When he stepped inside the room, he was surprised to find his wife and three children still eating dinner. Well, technically breakfast for dinner.

"Da!" the smallest of the three children shouted before giving their dad a hug and guiding him to an empty chair.

"What brings you home so early?" his wife asked, enthusiasm sparkling in her hazel eyes.

"I finished the assignment earlier than they expected," he answered. Then he turned to face his children. "What are you three doing, eating at this time of night?"

This time, the eldest child replied. "We've been doing this for a few days. But you've been so busy lately that you usually don't come home 'till after we're done."

The man looked confused, so their mother explained. "The kids start school at twenty-one hundred."

"When did that change?" he asked. It was only a few days ago that he had been talking to his eldest son, and oldest child, Jalja, about how nice it was that he didn't have to start school until eight standard hours. But starting school at night?! That was a little insane.

"A few days ago," Jalja replied.

The man looked over at his wife for a more thorough explanation. "There's a bunch of refugees who've just moved into the area. So, some of the students have to start earlier in day, others at night, in order to make room for all of the new kids."

"What kind?" he asked, spooning a bite of jyama into his mouth. The texture was gooey and the color bizarre, but the flavor was worth it.

"Togruta mostly. But there are a few people from Dantooine and a couple of Dugs as well," his wife answered. Looking over at her youngest child, she watched as she dropped spoonsful of fresh jyama into their pet Tooka's mouth. "Miza!" she scolded. "You know you're not supposed to feed the animals!" Miza looked alarmed, so she stared down at her jyama and ate in silence; making sure she didn't make a noise.

The man stared at his youngest child for a few seconds, wondering how many times his wife and him had reminded Miza not to feed the Tooka. The family had barely enough money to feed themselves and they'd only agreed to let their children have a pet Tooka because they knew that a Tooka would be able to find its own food. Trying to go back to the subject at hand, the man cleared his throat. "I sat by a Togruta on the way home," he recalled. "Do you think that they were one of the refugees?"

His wife took a sip of water. "Maybe. Not many Togrutas live around here in the first place."

"There's a ton of Togrutas in my class," the eldest said.

"What's a Togruta?" Miza chimed, forgetting about her creed to remain silent.

This time the middle child spoke. "They're just another sentient species."

Miza gave her older brother of two years a look of despair. How was a four-year-old, almost five, supposed to know what _that_ meant? She sighed and rested her chin on the table. Her mother understood what her daughter's actions implied. So, she explained. "A Togruta is like us. They can think for themselves, only they look a little different."

The little girl looked over at her pet Tooka, Blue, and asked, "Can Blue think for himself?"

Her mother gave a wry smile. "Not in the same way you or I can. Instead they have something called instincts. That's when you don't even have to think about doing something; it just comes naturally to you. It's almost like a… habit."

"Oh… what do Togrutas look like?" Miza mustered.

Jalja pointed towards Blue. "You know the ears on Blue's head?" His sister nodded. "Well, imagine someone with orange or pink skin and they have Blue's ears on top of their head and three tentacles hanging down from it."

Miza blinked. After a few seconds of processing the information that she'd just been given, she darted away from the table and down a hallway.

"Where are you going?" her father called.

"I'll be right back!" she replied.

After a few minutes of casual conversation, Miza returned to the table. She set down a large sheet of sheet of paper and beamed up towards her family. Grabbing the sheet, her mother asked, "Is this supposed to be a Togruta?"

The young girl gave a curt nod and grabbed the paper away from her mother. "I don't have any pink or orange Ma, so I used red."

The middle child glanced over his sister's shoulder. "You know, that's actually not a bad drawing. The proportions are a little off, but judging on how you've never seen a Togruta before, this drawing is very accurate."

The man starred at his six-year-old son. How could a child so young understand – even know – all of those words? It amazed him on what his children could do. "Tiru, where did you learn to say all that?"

Tiru shrugged his shoulders. "School, I guess."

His mother smiled. "His teacher told him that he's the brightest kid she's ever met."

"That's nice of your teacher to say," his father said.

Tiru smiled and finished eating his jyama. After a few more minutes the whole family was done eating. So, they cleared their dishes and helped to clean the kitchen. When, they were finished, the children said goodbye to their parents and made their way to the train so that they could go to school. While they were walking, Miza looked up at Tiru. "Do you really think my drawing looks like a Togruta?"

He nodded his head. "Yeah, and I don't know how you did it. I've seen a bunch of Togrutas and I don't even think I could draw half of what you did from memory. Your drawing is so good, it's almost like you were looking at a picture when you did it."

Miza smiled at her brother's praise. But, when the three siblings were seated on the train, she looked back down at the drawing which she was holding. A Togruta was sitting across from the children, and she looked exactly like the one in Miza's drawing. Tapping Jalja on the shoulder, Miza said, "Look, that Togruta looks like my drawing."

"Well of course it does. You're really good at-" he stopped mid-sentence and pulled the paper out of his sister's hands. Even though the picture wasn't proportionally correct, and some of the colors were a little off, the drawing looked exactly like the Togruta sitting across from them. "Miza, how did you…?"

Tiru looked over at the picture. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "That looks exactly like her!"

Miza grabbed the drawing back from her brothers and tucked it into her pocket. "I was closing my eyes when I was drawing it, but I could still see. I couldn't see what I was drawing, but I could see someone else. Like a person. And it was like I was just tracing the picture."

The brothers looked at each other. "Do you know what the Jedi are?" Jalja asked. Miza shook her head. "You know what the Force is, don't you?"

"I think so."

"Well, Jedi are people that can use the Force. They can lift things up with their minds, wield laser swords, and see things with their minds." Jalja paused at the last part. "Miza, I think that you might have the Force."

The three siblings sat in silence for a few minutes, taking in the information that might be true. "What if I _do_ have the Force?" Miza questioned.

" _If_ you do," Tiru started, "then it means that you'll… you'll become a Jedi."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"I don't know." Jalja looked afraid. As a nine-year-old, he didn't think that he'd ever be without his siblings. He'd always assumed that they be there with him, no matter what. But now, reality was taking its course and the possibility of losing one of his siblings seemed very real to him.

When the train came to a stop, the children got off it without saying a word. It had only been a five-minute ride, but it may have changed their lives forever. Living in the unknowns of whether or not their sister would become a Jedi.


	2. The Little Lost Bantha Cub

"Miza," the teacher started, "you look distracted today."

The young girl looked up from the paper on the table below her. Down in the under levels, most of the schools couldn't afford to have all of their students use datapads for worksheets. Instead, they gave them sheets of ling-on paper to read from and write on. "Sorry."

The teacher stared straight at Miza, no emotion showing. "Could you explain to me why the Bantha cub might be afraid?"

"Uh…" Miza hadn't been paying attention to the story that the teacher had been reading to them. But from the sound of it, she was reading something about a Bantha. And the only story that she knew about a Bantha was _The Little Lost Bantha Cub_. So, she decided to assume that it was her favorite story. "He couldn't find his herd. So, he was scared that he would never see his family… again." Miza looked down at the folded paper on the table. It was the drawing of the Togruta. What if she really had the Force? Because if she did, then she would become afraid like the Bantha Cub. She'd be afraid that she'd never see her family again. She had just learned what Jedi were a few hours ago. But she didn't know enough about them to stay certain that she would see her family again.

"Would you be afraid if you weren't with your family?"

One of the students at Miza's table raised two hands. They weren't human – they had too many arms to be that. "I would!"

"Why, Chuli?" the teacher asked the strange-armed-student, Chuli.

"I'm only five!" she exclaimed. "I can't do anything by myself!"

The teacher's lips curled and her eyebrows narrowed, giving the students an unsettling feeling. "You're talking, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah, but…" Chuli understood the fault in her words: She could do things by herself. And the fact that she was even talking proved her statement wrong. "I get it Teacher."

The teacher still wore the same queer smile as before, but she turned her attention to the rest of the class. "Is there another reason that someone would be afraid?"

Several students raised their hands this time and the teacher called on the youngest student in the class. He was Rodian and he had moved here a few days ago. Miza couldn't quite remember his name, but then the teacher said, "Darael?"

"I think it is scary to be away from your family. When you're gone from them, you don't know what to do. You're scared that they will be gone forever," he said, his beady, blue eyes staring straight down at his stack of paper.

Miza could tell, somehow, that the young Rodian spoke from experience. It was something in voice that gave it away. No, it was his mannerisms… was it really?

The teacher stole Miza away from her thoughts. "Thank you, Darael. Your answer was just what I was looking for."

Darael gave a slight nod and then the teacher continued into her lesson. She finished talking about the _Little Lost Bantha Cub_ , and then she began to teach about Banthas. Miza learned that they were from a desert planet called Tatooine, far, far away from Coruscant. And she also learned that that there was a type of people – or species, Miza couldn't tell which – that became really good friends with Banthas. Almost as good of friends as she was with her brothers. And the Banthas that the Sand People, as they were called, owned weren't treated like pets, they were treated like a member of their tribe.

But why? Why would someone treat an animal like a person? Well, not exactly like a person, but they were treated them with that much respect. Now, Miza loved her pet Tooka, but her father often reminded her that people come before pets. She of course, usually forgot that. But if she could, she would treat Blue like how the Sand People treat Banthas.


End file.
